How Does Deportation Affect Children

Deportation Affects on U.S. Citizen-Children and Families

Deportation affects a widespread of families throughout the United States. There are many illegal immigrants that make their way to the U.S. for better opprotunities such as education and employment. However, the system of deportation fails to recognize the destruction it causes the family left behind. In addition, abrupt parental removal can affect a child in many ways. This includes the childs overall mental health and the childs behavior towards his friends and others around him. The deportation of ones family members is a constant struggle and a life changing experience. First, a childs mental health can be extremely effected by any traumatic situations. When a childs parent is deported, this traumatic seperation can cause seperation anxiety,
citizen children believe they are are the only ones that have illegal parents that were deported. Due to this assumption, many children feel alienated and isolated from their friends and school environment. Countless of them feel misplaced or no longer feel close to those people they once had a good connection with. In addition, the deportation proceedings can influence a childs social abilities and friendships. For example according to Stanton-Salazar 2001 study, it states that “ The need for secrecy demonstrates a strategy of a face-saving and selective avoidance that many immigrant student employ as a way to avoid humilation from school personnel and peers they feel do not understand their experience.” In other words, children facing the removal of one parent or even two, feel embarassed to say anything because they believe they will not be understood or related to. Furthermore, many adolescents feel the need to constantly stay with their family because they are fearful for any potential deportation threats, and this leads to alienation from friends and society or any type of social involvement outside the